UV Letters

The summer is over, thank goodness. Although this may be heresy to beachgoers and people like me who enjoy the opportunity to wear white between Memorial Day and Labor Day, it has become gospel for political panjandrums. At the end of August I wrote about Donald Trump, whose appeal to the worst in human nature may be exceeded only by a handful of historical figures. But nature abhors a vacuum, and Trump has ably filled the...

It is a near certainty that no presidential candidate in history has used the words "smart" and "stupid" as often as Donald Trump. Listening to Trump speak is to witness a battle between smart and stupid. The most amazing thing about the Trump phenomenon is not that he continues to lead polls despite the things he says, but rather that Americans believe he's a successful...

The wide wide world of sports lost a great man this summer. Roderick Toombs of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan died of a heart attack at the age of 61. Better known as Rowdy Roddy Piper because he played bagpipes and wore a kilt, Rowdy Roddy was my favorite professional wrestler for...

I have three young boys. Zev, age 4, is the youngest, and he's constantly straining to be heard above the din. If survival of the fittest is playing out at home, Zev's survival skill is volume. He is loud. When he asks for water, he yells. When he announces he's going to the bathroom, he yells. And when he wants...

The trope of overlooking the hero based on appearances goes back as long as stories have been told. In the Bible, King David, the youngest and least impressive of his 7 brothers, was relegated to the fields to look after goats and sheep. Samuel thought David's brother was the impressive...

I met my wife the first day of college. According to our wedding announcement in the New York Times, she remembered "going to her first class... without doing her homework. She was not alone. 'We were supposed to have started reading Homer's Iliad over the summer, but none of us had,' she said. Then Mr. Craig walked in, carrying three translations of...

At the request (i.e., demand) of my parents, I recently visited their attic to clear out my old stuff. The biggest culprit was my vast collection of cassette tapes. While it was easy enough to part with Madonna and New Kids on the Block, I grew nostalgic about the recordings I made on my snazzy Casio two-cassette boombox, most of which were of the weekly radio show...

As East Africa is the world's fastest growing market for higher education, I find myself there frequently. On one of my recent trips to Kampala, the capital of Uganda, I met with the founder and CEO of a start-up university. Having invested tens of millions of dollars to launch the new institution, he calls the university a "gift to his country" - albeit one that appears likely to add substantially to...

Prior to University Ventures, I created Wellspring, which ran scientifically-based weight loss summer camps and boarding schools - the first of their kind, and pejoratively called "fat schools" by the media. Working with children and their families over 5+ years, we changed...